3/14/2006 @ 12:30AM

In Praise Of The Silver Bullet

H.L. Mencken thought it the only American invention as perfect as the sonnet, and E.B. White called it “the elixir of quietude.” It, of course, is that American gift to the world, the most sublime of cocktails, the dry gin martini.

The martini bespeaks an elegant, worldly sophistication. It conjures images of Cole Porter‘s “High Society” and Ellington’s “Sophisticated Lady”; it is Nick and Nora Charles knocking back a couple while engaging in a spot of dazzling repartee; it is Fred swirling Ginger across an opulent 1930′s dance floor; it is Irving Berlin putting on his “Top Hat, White Tie and Tails.”

Ice-cold and clear in the classic art deco glass, an olive or twist of lemon adding a touch of color, no other drink inspires such reverential and ritualistic awe in its devotees. It is a balm against a sordid world, a shield against all that is sullied, rushed and coarse.

For James Carville, martini enthusiast and about the only real drinker in the former Clinton White House, it is a social experience: “The ultimate feeling in the world is to be about two-thirds of the way through my second martini with people I like. Anything seems possible.” Whereas noted food writer M.F.K. Fisher looked on it as a source of solace and refuge: “A well-made dry martini or Gibson, correctly chilled and nicely served, has been more often my true friend than any two-legged creature.”

Martinis are a balm against a sordid world, a shield against all that is sullied, rushed and coarse.

Of course, there is also too much of a good thing. Martinis have the wallop of a pack mule, and devotees must pace themselves. There is an old riddle that defines the guidelines nicely: Question: “Why are martinis like women’s breasts?” Answer: “Because one is not enough and three are too many.”

The origins of the martini are, like most drinks, obscure. The town of Martinez in California claims to be where the first one was made, during the gold rush of 1849, though there has been more than a little speculation that this is merely an enterprising invention of the Martinez Chamber of Commerce.

There was certainly a Martinez cocktail being served in San Francisco by the 1880s, but it appears to have been a variation of the Manhattan and to have been made with sweet vermouth and Old Tom gin, a sweet 19th-century variation.

Something resembling today’s martini probably evolved from this drink around the turn of the century, though at that time it also contained various bitters, and in London clubs, a dash of absinthe was often added. One can only marvel at the atomic effects of that enticing concoction.

Although the name and the right ingredients had come together by about 1900, the proportions, one part gin to two parts vermouth, would make a contemporary aficionado shudder and call for the bartender’s head. The evolution to today’s proportions, about six or eight parts gin to one part vermouth, was slow; even in 1947, Trader Vic’s bartending guide recommended two parts gin to one part vermouth (see: “20 Great Martini Recipes“). As humorist Robert Benchley once remarked, the recipe for an ideal martini was three parts gin and enough vermouth to take away that ghastly watery look.

One of the great divides in martini culture, which inspires a passion similar to debating the virtues of Macs over PCs or Ali over Marciano, is whether the superior martini is made by shaking or stirring. There is much talk about “bruising” the gin, a notion that repels as many people as it attracts. In the spirit of disclosure, I must admit that I am an advocate of bruising, or shaking, and for more reasons than that it was James Bond’s preferred manner of preparation.

To properly make a martini, one needs a metal cocktail shaker and plenty of ice. The chemistry between the ice and metal instantly chills the gin to just the right temperature, but it is the shaking that makes a martini more than just cold gin. Like a centrifuge, a good vigorous shaking will combine the molecules of the gin and vermouth, effectively altering their nature for the better.

Many believe that a mere stirring, regardless of how muscular it may be, will not produce the same effect. Colin Field, head barman at the Bar Hemingway at the Hotel Ritz in Paris, is a stirring man. “Why did Bond insist on having his Martinis shaken? Because he was a rebel, an iconoclast, but also because he was in constant bloody danger. By doing things differently, that was how he stayed alive.”

Ironically, the immense popularity of gin in America in the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s was largely due to Prohibition; bathtub gin was the easiest and cheapest bootleg alcohol to make, so party-goers developed a taste for it, which they didn’t give up when the stuff became legal again.

The martini reigned as America’s favorite, and quintessential, drink from the end of Prohibition until the late ’60s, when its popularity began to fade along with the three-martini lunch and the growth in wine drinking–not to mention people seeking stimulation from more-illicit substances. But like that other demon of decadence, the cigar, martinis have made a comeback.

As the inveterate and somewhat irritating trend-spotter Faith Popcorn observed in The New York Times, the martini revival may be due to self-indulgence replacing self-denial as the reigning fashion. She could be right. But for true martini lovers, this cocktail of cocktails has never been out of fashion–the rest of the world just did not know what pleasures they were depriving themselves of when they passed up an ice-cold see-through for a glass of Chardonnay.

For baby boomers, it was their parents’ drink–something drunk before, during and after a meal by people ignorant of the pleasures of wine, and as such, something to be shunned. Today’s tipplers, not burdened with such Freudian baggage, are more than happy to rediscover the calming joys and contented self-satisfaction that results from getting outside one of these high-octane cocktails.

For most of this century, the martini was the drink of the WASP upper class and those who aspired to it; it was a mark of savoir faire, a badge of membership. As Barnaby Conrad III observed in his highly amusing book, The Martini, it is the drink of the elite, consumed in well-upholstered bars, boardrooms and country clubs. It is not a drink for the mountain trail, the ballpark or the taproom; it is an urban, and urbane, drink; a coat-and-tie sort of drink.

The martini is really all about gin. In fact, for the true aficionado, it is the only justification for gin’s existence.